


six shooter

by deadofdecember (TalkingIsJustAWasteOfBreath)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Cowboy Bebop - Freeform, Dark, Enemies to Lovers, Guns, Lots of guns, M/M, Smoking, Trigun - Freeform, based off of, man i love space, oikawa goes through a lot in this, outlaw star - Freeform, space, space western, this got a lot darker than i thought i would ngl, ur in for a lot guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2019-11-08 23:19:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17990396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalkingIsJustAWasteOfBreath/pseuds/deadofdecember
Summary: sugawara koushi has been on the run for most of his life. a child of space and time, he can see through layers of reality and there is no one in the entire galaxy that can match his skill with gun. his body count has finally caught up to him, and he is stumbling through the largest sandstorm in a century with a gunshot wound in his shoulder, desperate for help.sawamura daichi is an outlaw, and a good one at that. he spends his time collecting bounties and smuggling goods across the galaxy, all from the comfort of his prized saloon. he is leaving tommorow for a routine smuggling run. he has no idea what is about to happen to him.the universe didn't quite mean for them to meet, but they do, and the result is a criss-crossing of the galatic leylines of the galaxy, a firestorm of emotion, and a journey to the end of the universe to find the cure to a sickness that isn't even supposed to exsist.





	1. loaded bullets, with my blood in the rounds

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys
> 
> i had no intention of ever rewriting this fic, but here i am, four years later, and still as much of a slut for space westerns as i was when i was a freshman in high school and wrote the original six shooter fic and then subsequnetly orphaned it about a year later for reasons i don't remember. i found it again recently (if you search six shooter in the ao3 tags it still pops up after a little searching) reread and realized that 15 year old me was actually on to something pretty cool. this is the result
> 
> this gets a little dark and i 100% blame my ap english class for that. shit gets real, but i promise everyone will turn out ok in the end. i have no idea how long this is gonna be or what updates are going to be like (i'm still a little bit in shock that i actually managed to sit down and bang out 6000 words over the course of two days????) but i'm really excited to be jumping back into this world again. 
> 
> i'll leave the rest of the commentary under the fic. enjoy!

Suga spit a mouthful of sand out of his mouth and pulled his leather duster a little tighter around him, wincing as the fabric pulled against the fresh bullet wound in his shoulder .

 

Uninjured? Suga thinks he could survive this sandstorm easily. Pull his duster over himself, cover his mouth with his handkerchief to keep the excess bits of sand from pooling in his mouth and nostrils and wait the hour or so for the storm to be over. Unfortunately for Suga, Tetsuro had just shot him twice in the shoulder and left him to die in the largest sandstorm this planet had seen in a century. If he didn’t find shelter soon, he would bleed out before his accelerated healing kicked in, and Suga was not partial to the idea of bleeding to death in the desert of his least favorite planet.

 

A image of Tetsuro standing over him, gun smoking, and crying a little (Suga had never seen him cry) forced itself into Suga’s head and he pushed it from his thoughts violently, trying to ignore how his heart suddenly felt like it was being melted with acid and how his hands suddenly began to shake. He knew Tetsuro regretted  their choices as much as he did, regretted all the blood and the killing they had started on originally with good intentions. To use their existence for good, to take care of things that ordinary people couldn’t, that had been the plan. But somehow along the way (Suga wasn’t quite sure where they crossed the line) the good turned to mass murder and now Suga was stuck with a body count and a bleeding heart.

 

Suga trudged on, determined to survive. He still had business in this universe and he did not intend to die before he carried it out.

 

How long had he been walking for now? An hour or so? He hadn’t been far from the outskirts of Sand City when Tetsuro had shot him, and if he had picked his direction right, he should have started stumbling into seedy bars and poor shacks by now. Suga stopped and closed his eye for a moment, searching through the layers of reality for a human aura, something to guide him in the right direction. The sandstorm is too powerful; the chaos of the storm disrupts all the layers of reality and throws them out of order, leaving Suga helpless.

 

 _I had it coming,_ he thinks numbly. _The universe wouldn’t be kind to me now. I’m on my own._

 

Suddenly, Suga knocks into something solid with a start, stumbling forward and catching himself again something long and hard that felt like wood. He felt along the grain cautiously, feeling for a hinge, a bit of metal, anything to give him a clue about what he’d run into. Suga’s fingers caught against something at about the height of his waist. A latch? How fucking lucky. Suga was too tired to care. He pulled on the bit of metal, hard, and the wood gave way beneath him, sending him stumbling into a room heavy with  sweet smelling smoke.

 

A saloon, probably. Suga felt his knees give way beneath him and he promptly collapsed onto the floor, vision going fuzzy. His bullet wound throbs, once, twice, and Suga sees a rainbow of colors explode in front of his eyes before he goes unconscious, surrendering to the dark.

 

~

Sawamura Daichi was born, raised and will probably die an outlaw. It's a fact he accepts wholeheartedly; hes figures he wouldn’t fit in so well on the right side of the law anyways. While bounty hunting wasn’t technically against the law, smuggling most certainly was and as Daichi dabbled fairly often in both occupations on top of running the saloon his mother had left him when she had died, he made a point to handle his interactions with the deputies of the Intergalactic Police force with delicacy. They were who he collected bounties from after all; it wouldn’t do to have them tangled up in his smuggling business as well. 

 

Daichi was currently leaning against the chipped wooden bar of his  empty saloon, reviewing the to-do list he had written in his notebook the night before. He was leaving for a smuggling run in the morning, and he would be gone for at least one or two months with some of the people he generally trusted to keep the saloon in a working order. This time, he’d be leaving the saloon in the care of Kiyoko and Yachi, a first since they’d started working for him eight months ago. Daichi wasn’t worried. Kiyoko had been an assassination droid before she wound up here and people had a tendency to underestimate Yachi due to her small stature and wide, innocent eyes. Besides, he wanted Bokuto and Akaashi with him this time, and he knew how sick Bokuto was of being left behind whenever Daichi and the rest of his crew took the trip to Ukai’s.

 

The whole saloon suddenly shook violently, glasses rattling and the floor vibrating. Daichi didn’t look up. Sand storms were becoming more and more common these days and the radio had said that this one was probably one of the most powerful in recent history; a good thing for Daichi, because the police and sky patrol that monitored the comings and goings out of the planet would be preoccupied with the aftermath of the storm than a ship quietly slipping out of the atmosphere without a permit. The dust storm also meant that the saloon was pleasantly empty, except for Oikawa smoking his suppression cigarettes in the corner. The sweet, spinning smoke would sometimes float over and catch in Daichi’s nostrils, making him sneeze violently, but Daichi knew from experience that asking him to stop smoking the damn things wouldn’t do anything (when not even Iwaizumi can convince Oikawa to stop doing something, it's officially a lost cause). Daichi lets him continue to chain smoke his emotions away in the corner and makes a mental note to have Oikawa wake Iwaizumi up once the storm is over.

 

Daichi returns to his list. Akaashi and Bokuto would probably be over sometime this evening, with Akaashi’s bike and Bokuto’s toolkit. They’d stay the night at the saloon, so they could leave with the rest of them as early as they could in the morning, and then they’d all swing past the neighboring Neyon system to pick up Kageyama before heading off to Ukai’s outpost in the Karasuno system to pick up the goods and then-

 

From across the saloon, Oikawa sat up suddenly, knocking over the glass of water sitting on table next to him and dropping his cigarette to the floor. Even from this distance, Daichi could see that the glass-like sheen that usually floated over his dust colored eyes was gone, replaced by an intensity that Daichi rarely saw anymore. His long fingers clutched the table and Daichi suddenly wondered if he was having another attack, if he’d fallen through a rip in reality again, if he should go wake Iwaizumi up now because Iwaizumi was really the only one who knew what to do when it happened.

 

“Dai-chan.” Oikawa’s voice was clear, but even Daichi could tell that he was having trouble keeping his voice from shaking. “It looks as if we are about to have a visitor”

 

As if on cue, something _thunked_ against the door of the saloon, making the hinges shudder. Daichi and Oikawa stayed frozen in place, watching as the hinges shuddered again and the latch to the door clicked free, sending a gust of sand into the saloon and a figure wrapped in a long leather duster crashing to the floor. Daichi vaulted himself over the bar and sprinted across the saloon, using all his strength to slam the door back shut against the dust storm and latch it. Oikawa crushed his fallen cigarette under the heel of his boot and calmly approached the fallen figure, He knelt down next to them and gently turned them face up. Daichi heard Oikawa take a sharp breath while he struggled to slide the latch into place; he turned to see Oikawa looking at the figure with an unreadable expression on his face.

 

Whoever had stumbled into his saloon, Daichi thought, did not look like someone who would be wandering around in a sand storm, much less be caught dead on this side of town. He was too pretty. He looked to be about the same age as Daichi and Oikawa, with silvery hair and skin completely unmarred by scarring or burns, a rarity on this side of the galaxy. Only the rich had the privilege of erasing marks like that. Even Oikawa, as good looking as he was, had scar tissue littering his torso and a burn mark marrying his left shoulder, permanently twisting and melting the flesh.

 

It's only when Daichi notices blood soaking into the sleeves of his shirt that he realizes the man is bleeding from a wound in his right shoulder, most certainly made by an old fashioned bullet rather than a laser, because laser burns absolutely did not bleed like _that_. Shit. This man needed help, and fast, or else he would run the risk of bleeding out on the floor of Daichi’s saloon and that was not something Daichi wanted to deal with at the moment.

 

“Go wake up Iwaizumi,” Daichi says, and starts to tug the mans duster off. Oikawa grabs Daichi’s arms to stop him.

 

“Sawamura,” he says quitey, but with a certain air to his voice that makes Daichi freeze, “Do you have any idea who this man is?”

 

Daichi frowns. There is something distantly familiar about the man, but thousands of partons stumbled through his saloon every single year. This man could easily just be one of the many faces Daichi sees every year.

 

Oikawa releases Daichi’s arms and reaches for the guns Daichi didn’t realize had been strapped to the man's body the whole time. Oikawa snaps open the holster and pulls one of the guns out.. Its a old-fashion repeating six-shooter revolver with a worn black leather grip, a rarity in an age of lasers. Bullets did have their advantages; you couldn’t hack them for one, and solid bullet wounds were a hell of a lot harder to treat than laser burns. Oikawa flipped the revolver around with a graceful flick of his wrist, exposing the engraving on the barrel. It was a small stamp of two pistols crossed over each other, smoking at the barrel, set over a grinning skull. Daichi’s breath caught in his throat.

 

“He’s the Six Shooter, Sawamura. This man has killed more people than you and I have ever met in our entire lifetime.”

 

The familiarity clicks into place. Daichi had met the Six Shooter and his partner, the Humanoid Typhoon a few years ago in a shootout in a bar in downtown Sand City. It had been a few months after his mother had died and a huge rainstorm had broken over the desert after months upon months of drought. Grief had begun to bleed into every aspect of his life, making it difficult to sleep, to eat or upkeep the damn saloon and Daichi was sick of it, so he had up and decided to try one of the new bars downtown that sold fairly decent emotion laced cocktails, according to Tanaka and Noya.

 

The saloon had been strange. It was dusty and slightly cold. Daichi had sat at a bar facing the street, looking through a rain streaked window out onto the neon street lights across the street from him. The bottom of the windows had ugly stained glass decals of cacti wearing cowboy hats. Daichi fought the urge to kick them as he choked down a margarita with a shot of happiness and tranquility, gagging as the emotions hit his throat.

 

Just as Daichi was starting to feel the sadness start to slip away from him, the glass in front of him shattered. He flinched away from the blast, holding his arms up in front of him to protect his face from the shards, but Daichi still winced as he felt glass slice across his cheek. Looking up he saw that the bar across the street had its windows blown out too. In the wreckage Daichi could see two figures standing back to back, features flickering in and out of the neon lights sputtering from the sign above them. They were both soaked from head to toe, matching silver hoops glinting in their ears. The taller one had his black hair plastered in streaks down his face, and Daichi heard him yell something to his partner, the words too far away to make out. The shorter one with the silver hair raised his gun and the taller one followed suit, both standing completely still as people crowded around them. Members of the intergalactic police melted away from the crowd surrounding them and approached the pair cautiously, guns of their own raised. Daichi spotted several deputies and two sheriffs among the regular rangers; whoever those two were, they must have been pretty dangerous to have that many rangers on them tracking them at one time.

 

Daichi crawled out of the wrecked bar and pulled himself to his feet, watching in a strange sort of trance as the shootout began. It was a mad flurry of sparks, gunsmoke and screams and as the artificial emotions made their way through his bloodstream, Daichi couldn’t bring himself to turn away from the scene. Happiness washed through him. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there for, but it was long enough that once the smoke finally cleared he was the only one left on the street besides the pair of outlaws and the mounds of bodies scattering the street. Most of them were wearing police uniforms, but Daichi spotted a few civilians amongst them. He tried to muster up some disgust, some dread, some fear, _something_ at the massacre he had just witness, but Daichi couldn’t. He just stood there in the rain, dumbfounded as the pair of outlaws approached him.

 

They seemed less dangerous up close. The shorter, silver haired one had a streak of blood splashed across his cheek. The taller one brushed wet hair out of his eyes and raised his revolver at Daichi. Again, Daichi tried to pull some sort of emotion from himself other than ecstasy, but it never came. He watched as the man put his finger on the trigger and considered him silently. Daichi closed his eyes.

 

“Leave him be, Tetsuro.”

 

Daichi opened his eyes. The silver haired one had his hand on the other’s wrist, slowly pushing the arm with the gun clutched in its hand back to the man's side. He had a soft look in his eye; a look that didn’t fit him quite right after Daichi had just watched him kill over a hundred people.

 

The pair turned away from him and walked away into the rain and neon. Daichi watched them until he couldn’t see them anymore. He took the skyway back to the saloon that night and collapsed onto the floor. Iwaizumi found him in the morning. Daichi never had an emotion cocktail again. A few months later, an official bounty was placed on the Six Shooter and the Humanoid Typhoon, a bounty of 60,000,000 $$ each. It was the largest bounty ever set by intergalactic police force, but one seldom pursued. For obvious reasons.

 

It all comes flooding back to Daichi in one big wave as he sits next to the Six Shooter bleeding to death on the floor of his saloon. The silver hair, the earring. The neon. Daichi had tried so hard to block that night completely from his memory (the feeling of elation at watching all those people die, no matter how hard he tried to break away from the grasp of the fake emotion), but here it was, confronting him directly again. He could- he _should_ let his man bleed to death. Daichi is no angel, but mass murder is way beyond anything he's ever done. Especially the murder of civilians, people who have done nothing wrong and simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

“He has a bounty, Dai-chan.” Oikawa interrupted his thoughts. He’s spinning the revolver in between his fingers with a practiced ease. “And the police want him alive. They’ll only give us half of the 60,000,000$$ if he’s dead without his partner.”

 

Daichi looks down at the Six Shooter. Oikawa is right. 60,000,000 is an incredible amount of money, money that they could easily put to use. It could buy Bokuto an actual shop, it could pay for renovations for the saloon, it could pay for the treatment that Oikawa needed. And it would bring this man to justice. Justice for the thousands of people he’s killed in cold blood.

 

“Go wake up Iwaizumi.” Daichi pulls the man out of his coat and starts to drag him towards one of the longer casino tables. “Have him patch him up. Make sure he stays sedated- I don’t want him waking up before we bring him to the sheriff.”

 

~

 

Oikawa takes a long, hard drag off of his cigarette and shudders as he feels his body going numb and his mind spinning away him, breathing out a long, concentrated stream of smoke. He had to smoke like this when he's around Iwaizumi; he has to keep everything at bay. Oikawa does not like to let himself feel too much, not since the accident, and Iwaizumi is a prime example of something that overwhelms Oikawa emotionally. A stronger person would avoid Iwaizumi completely, abandon him and move across the galaxy to live out his emotionally repressed life in peace. Oikawa is many things, and strong is one of them, but Iwaizumi has always been his weak spot. So, Oikawa chain smokes emotional suppression cigarettes and lets himself stay near Iwaizumi, close enough to keep himself sane, but far enough away that he doesn’t get burned.

 

He watches Iwaizumi in a haze, watches him cut the shirt off of one of the most dangerous criminals in the entire galaxy, watches him disinfect the bullet wound in his shoulder, watches him thread neat little stitches into the man's skin and pull, puckering and closing the wound. It's been awhile since Oikawa had watched Iwaizumi work like this. Oikawa remembers before the accident, when he used to sit in the viewing room of the surgery suite at the academy after he would get back from his flight training and watch Hajime work. His flights always got back before Iwaizumi's shift was over, and Oikawa always waited up and watched him, because he couldn’t stand going back to their dorm alone.

 

Oikawa feels his heart tug under all the haze and he quickly takes another drag off of his cigarette, satisfied when the emotion is suddenly drowned in the smoke dissolving into his bloodstream.

 

Iwaizumi puts a pill under the Six Shooters tongue and pulls a blanket over him. He takes a seat next to Oikawa in a rickety wooden chair and sighs when Oikawa blows a puff of smoke in his face.

 

“Tooru.”

 

Oikawa lets himself feel a little bit of warmth in the pit of his stomach when Iwaizumi uses his first name. He only ever called him Tooru when they were alone, a remnant of their academy days.

 

“Do you think he’ll live, Iwa-chan?”

 

Iwaizumi grumbles. “Yeah. It’ll scar pretty fucking nastily though.”

 

Oikawa grins and blows smoke in face again as a response. Iwaizumi growls and kicks Oikawa’s chair out from under him, sending Oikawa tumbling to the floor. Oikawa lets out an indignant squawk because he was _not_ expecting that response and looks up at Iwaizumi with a childishly shocked look on his face, cigarette forgotten.

 

“Mean, Iwa-chan, oh my god, I can't believe you just-”

 

“Dumbass.” Iwaizumi watched with an affectionate frown as Oikawa made a show of picking himself up off the ground and fixing his hair. “I told you to stop fucking smoking those.”

 

Oikawa picks his chair off the ground and sits back down in it with a huff. It was rare to see Iwaizumi this playful. Their interactions were so strained these days and Iwaizumi was so busy and stressed that he didn’t seem to have the energy to tease Oikawa anymore. Maybe it was the possibility of those 60,000,000$$ that had him in a better mood. They both knew that even a fraction of that money could be enough to find some sort of treatment for his reality sickness. The sickness had gotten worse and worse over the last few months. Neither of them knew what would happen when it finally overtook him.

 

Oikawa and Iwaizumi sat in silence for a few seconds, both looking at the sleeping outlaw on the table. There was so much unsaid between them, months and years of pain and affection that had somehow prevailed through Oikawa falling through a rip in space and time and somehow surviving, that never felt the need to talk. Oikawa found the half-finished cigarette on the floor and crushed it with his foot, grinding the ashes into Daichi’s beloved oak flooring.

 

Iwaizumi broke the silence first.

 

“Was it..bad today?”

 

Oikawa bit his lip,fighting the sudden urge to lite up another cigarette. “No. Not bad. I only flew forward once today,right before the Six Shooter walked in. I saw him coming in seconds before it happened. I’m not quite sure if it was at complete random this time or what, but it was pretty fucking lucky. Other than that, it was fine.”

 

Iwaizumi scratched his cheek. “Good. You haven’t had a day like that in awhile.”

 

Oikawa nodded numbly. He was afraid that because today hadn’t been bad, tonight might be worse, or that the sickness might invade his dreams again. It used to be that dreams were the only place Oikawa was safe from reality fraying and sending him forward and backward and around time, but over the last month he’d found that the sickness had finally bled into his unconscious. They both knew that it would only be a matter of time before space-time would overtake him completely.

 

A groan interrupted them. The Six Shooter shifted under his blanket, eyes fluttering. Iwaizumi got up and placed two fingers over his jugular, frowning.

 

“He shouldn’t be up this early. That sedative I gave him should have knocked him out for at least two more hours. It's barely been twenty minutes.” Oikawa watched as Iwaizumi shook out another pill from his bottle and placed it in the Six Shooters mouth again.

 

Oikawa stretches his arms above his head and glances at the bar clock near the cases of liquor. “Akaashi and Bokuto should be here soon anyway. We can have them take care of the restraints before we talk to him face to face.”

 

Iwaizumi nodded, but Oikawa could still see him hesitating over the outlaw.

 

“What's wrong, Hajime?”

 

“It's just….” Iwaizumi grabs for the pill bottle again and examines the label. “These sedatives are derivatives of animal tranquilizers from the Maroon system. This stuff should easily knock out someone like me or Bokuto for at least an hour and a half, and this guy is probably 30 to 35 pounds lighter than us with considerably less muscle mass. Humans can’t process that kind of shit this quickly.”

 

“He’s killed thousands of people.” Oikawa shrugs. “Maybe he isn’t human.”

 

Iwaizumi shoves him lightly with his shoulder. “Don’t be a smartass Shittykawa. Let's go get Daichi.” Iwaizumi turns to leave and Oikawa starts to follow him, but a thought catches in his mind and he pauses. The Six Shooter didn’t have any scarring; Oikawa had noticed it when he first tumbled into the saloon and he had quietly noticed it again when Iwaizumi had been stitching him up. You didn’t spend a lifetime killing people, a lifetime hopping around the universe without accumulating a few scratches, no matter how good you were.

 

Oikawa shook the thought from his head. The outlaw had probably paid to have the scarring removed and they had happened to catch him after a recent appointment. Nothing more.

 

Oikawa followed Iwaizumi into the living quarters of the saloon, fumbling for his cigarettes as he did so. Behind him, the Six Shooter stirred once again.

 

~

 

“Hey, hey, hey, Akaashi, could you come and help me tie the knot? You’re better at them than I am.”

 

“You’re a mechanic, Bokuto-san. Surely you must know how to tie a good knot.”

 

“Akaashi-chan is right Bokuto. You’re 20 years old and you fix things for a living! You should know how to tie a good knot.”

 

“Oikawa, I’m good with gears and grease and screwdrivers, not ropes. Plus,my fingers are too big to handle this cord.They keep slipping!”

 

Suga’s head was killing him. He had been slipping in and out of consciousness for awhile now, hearing snippets of conversations he couldn’t remember and seeing bits of aura through his eyelids, flashing lilac and maroon and gold. He was trying to remember what was going on, what had happened to him,why his chest and shoulder hurt so much and where he was, but his thoughts kept tumbling away from him before he could grasp them properly.

 

Something jolted him. Pain ricocheted through his torso and his head and Suga groaned weakly. Something jolted him again, harder, and the resulting pain forced Suga’s eyes open as tears ran down his cheeks. He hadn’t been in pain like this for a long time and he had almost forgotten what it felt like.

 

There were five people surrounding him. Suga tried to stand but found that he had been bound to a chair,his hands tied to the rungs and his ankles tied to the legs. The low lights made it difficult to see the faces of the people who had presumably tied him to the chair but Suga could see their auras just fine. Gold, dark green, maroon and-

 

There, in the middle.

 

Suga could see smoke curling from the figures outline. His aura was completely fractured, thousand of different colors melting together around a heart made of a light lilac (the original aura, Suga guessed). Only the universe itself could infect an aura like that; it was the aura of someone close to being destroyed by reality.

 

Suga had never seen someone with that level of reality sickness. Then again, reality sickness was something that wasn’t really supposed to happen to human beings. Surviving a rip in space and time without being part space-time yourself was supposed to be impossible and yet-

 

The golden aura spoke, throwing him out of his thought process. “Oho, and he finally awakes! Would you like to start, Daichi?”

 

The dark green aura shifted its stance, crossing its arms. “Please make it quick, Daichi-san. This really isn’t how I wanted to spend my night.”

 

The shattered aura giggled and took another drag from whatever he was smoking. Suga watched as the smoke mingled with the colors of the aura,slowly dissolving into them. “We all know how you’d rather be spending your night, Akaashi-chan.”

An  aqua aura Suga hadn’t noticed elbowed the shattered aura in the side. “Shut up, Shittykawa.”

 

The maroon aura reached forward and fiddled with something on the table. A light clicked on, suddenly illuminating the figures around him. All men, about the same age as him, with various levels of scarring signifying that they were probably all outlaws. Suga groaned. The fact that they had tied him up probably meant that they were bounty hunters too, after the 60,000,000$$ bounty on his head if they delivered him to the Intergalactic police in one piece. Shit. This was bad. Really bad. Suga had been lucky to not fall into the hands of bounty hunters in all the years he had been on the run, and now that he had finally decided to try and change he runs into some right after he decides to break it off with Tetsuro. Fantastic.

 

The man the maroon aura is attached to awkwardly stands in front of him. He has close cut brown hair and eyes, with a strong jawline and a scar cutting his right eye in half. The others have their eyes trained on him intently, but also with a little bit of protectiveness, Suga notices. He must be the leader then, and these must be the kind of outlaws that function more as friends than business partners.

 

“The only reason that we don’t still have you drugged is because for some reason none of our sedatives can’t keep you asleep for more than twenty minutes. You caught us at a lucky time- our crew leaves tomorrow for some business in the Karasuno system and we’d be more than happy to drop you off with a deputy from the intergalactic police and collect your bounty.”

 

“Please.” Suga tries, “Please don’t turn me in.”

 

The man with the shattered aura snorts. Suga can see now that he has light brown hair and dusty eyes, handsome in a dangerous way. “Don’t even bother. You’ve killed thousands of people, Shooter-chan. We’re not exactly upstanding citizens, but even that warrants justice.”

 

“Please, I-”

 

The leader cuts him off. “What’s your real name?”

 

“Sugawara Koushi.”

 

“How old are you?”

 

“20, technically, but-”

 

The leader frowns. “But what?”

 

Suga digs his fingernails into his hands. He didn’t want to reveal his identity, but he also couldn’t let these bounty hunters turn him into the police. He couldn’t redeem himself in a prison for one, and he knew what kind of things the Federation scientists did to maximum security inmates.

 

“I’m 20, in a sense, but I’m older than that in reality. Its- Its complicated, I know, but I- I can’t explain it all right now, but please, please don’t turn me in.” Suga hates begging but he knows that this is his last option. “The reason I was shot, Test- Kuroo, my partner, shot me because I told him I couldn’t work with him anymore. I couldn’t lead that kind of life anymore, all the killing and the running around. I just couldn’t. All the horrible things I’ve done. It started off good in the beginning, we were supposed to be helping but somehow we ended up just murdering instead and I-”

 

Suga doesn’t realize he’s crying until he feels wetness on his cheeks. Damn. He hadn’t realized how deeply he had been hurt from all of this, but here he was, crying in front of a bunch of fucking bounty hunters.

 

The outlaws looked a little shocked at his reaction. The leader runs a hand over his chin, thinking.

 

“Look, Sugawara, I understand but-”

 

The man with the dark green aura cuts him off. “I don’t think he's lying, Daichi-san.”

 

“It doesn’t matter if he’s lying or not, Akaashi-chan.” The man with the shattered aura has a certain venom in his voice that makes Suga wince. “It’s still 60,000,000$$.”

 

Suga looks at his aura again, looks at all the colors whirring around the steady lilac center of his heart.

 

“You don’t have much time left, do you?”

 

The man takes a drag off of his cigarette, but Suga can see that his hands are shaking.  “I don’t know what you mean, Sugawara-chan.”

 

“The reality sickness. It’s killing you. No amount of money is going to be able to fix that.”

 

The man with the aqua aura, who Suga now saw had hazel eyes and short, spiky hair stepped protectively in front of the other man, glaring at Suga. “How the fuck do you know about that?”

 

Suga shrugged. “His aura is shattered. The universe is killing him. You fell through a rip in space and time, didn’t you? Humans aren’t supposed to be able to survive that kind of thing.”

 

The outlaws look at him, a little dumbfounded. Suga swallows his fear and keeps going.

 

“I know someone who could help you. I’m partially made of space and time- that's how I can see it affecting you. That's why...that's why this is all so complicated. Kuroo was too. That's how we got away with what we did for so long without being caught. We aren’t human, not exactly. But I can help you get rid of your reality sickness and I can travel with you. I can help you, please…”

 

Suga trails off. If they don’t accept his offer...no, he can’t think about that. They cared about that man with the shattered aura too much. This has to work. He had to give himself a chance at redemption, at forgiveness.

 

The outlaws sit in silence, looking at him, waiting for the leader to give his reply. Suga takes the time to examine him closer; his maroon aura is laced with bits of gold, threaded through the fabric of his soul carefully. He’s cute, in a slightly rugged sort of way. He seems kind, despite his occupation, and Suga desperately hopes that has triggered a bit of that kindness with his story.

 

The leader turns. “Oikawa, Iwaizumi. Do you think he's right?”

 

The man with the shattered aura scuffs his feet against the floor. “Probably. Nothing we’ve done so far has worked. Barely anyone's ever heard of it, not even the doctors at the academy when I first fell through and, well,” the man pauses card a hand through his hair, fingers still shaking madly, “we all know how wonderful those academy doctors are.”

 

The leader runs a hand through his hair and sighs. He walks over to the bar and rummages around, pulling a glass and an amber colored liquor out from under the wood. He pours himself a glass and takes a long drink from it, slamming the glass down on the counter when he finishes.

 

“Akaashi, untie him and hide his guns. Iwaizumi and I will go get another room ready on the ship. Oikawa,” he gestures to the man with the shattered aura, “Keep an eye on him. See what you can figure out from him about reality sickness.”

 

The leader turns to face Suga head on, locking eyes with him intently. Suga’s heart leaps involuntarily, pounding against his rib cage.

 

“Welcome to my crew, Sugawara Koushi. You better not fuck this up.”

 


	2. gotta raise a little hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no excuse except for that im lazy and stupid and thats why i literally havent updated for two months
> 
> i want y'all to know that the only reason this chapter got written was because of all of your really, really sweet and encouraging comments- i find it incredibly difficult to write without a purpose and you guys gave me the energy i needed to finish this
> 
> i have no idea what updates will be like for the future. i adore this universe and i have a good idea of the direction i would want this fic to go in, but i'm also seriously considering writing a few one shots in the same universe for a diffrent anime *cough daiya no ace cough* 
> 
> thank you all so, so much. please enjoy
> 
> (bonus points to anyone who knows what poem is refrenced in the beginning)

Oikawa knows that today had been a lucky day for him. The reality sickness had only thrown him forward in time once and had caused a little static in the front of his mouth when he had first woken up in the morning, nothing compared to some of the other days the sickness had flared. This is why he isn’t particularly surprised when he falls asleep and halfway through a dream he can’t bring himself to remember, he feels himself (his dreamself? His consciousness? Oikawa wasn’t sure how to tell them apart anymore) fall through a rip in time and space.

 

It's a place he's only been once in real life, when all of this started, when he was an academy cadet and out on a boring, trivial mission. Boring and trivial to him, at least, because mapping the edge of a new galaxy is nothing to the highest ranked cadet in the academy a few months away from graduating. Oikawa was destined for great things. Command of his own squadron perhaps, the future captain of a battleship. A cushy salary and plenty of action. Just a few short months away, if it only hadn’t been for that small rip in space of time that had opened up on the edge of a newborn star that snatched his ship out of the clutches of reality and brought it to the end (and beginning) of the universe. 

 

_ There are no eyes here, _

_ In this valley of dying stars _

 

Oikawa is kneeing in the sand. His right hand is impaired on a prickly pear cactus and the blood is running down the length of his arm and dripping onto his legs. 

 

_ Eyes I dare not meet in dreams. _

_ In death's dream kingdom _

 

The blood turns to dark matter. It winds itself around around his wrists and makes its way up his arms, slowly, painfully. Oikawa tried to scratch it off with his fingernails, but the dark matter burns and tears at his hands. It turns his skin into carbon. It blows away in the wind, black dust dissolving into the air. Oikawa screams and screams and screams. He is suddenly 14 again, stomach twisted with hunger, biting down hard on his finger, hoping the pain will keep him conscious. He is 16 and holding a filet knife to the throat of a boy with hazel eyes, blood running down his chin from a cut on his lip. He is 18 years old and Hajime is asleep on a chair next to his hospital bed, under eyes heavy with bruises and his fingers tangled with Oikawa’s. 

 

The dark matter reaches his throat. Oikawa’s eyes fly open.

 

Iwaizumi is kneeling over him, hands pressing Oikawa’s wrists into the mattress. His face is the only thing in Oikawa’s eyes can keep in focus; everything else in the room is over-saturated and blurred around the edges. There is a strange numbing, tinfoil feeling hovering in the center of his mouth.

 

“You were screaming.” Iwaizumi voice is heavy with sleep and concern. “You kept trying to scratch at your arms.”

“My cigarettes.” Oikawa is gasping for air, trying to breath the feeling back into his lips and tongue. “Get me my cigarettes.”

 

Iwaizumi releases his wrists and sits on the side of Oikawa’s bed. “I’m not getting you your fucking cigarettes Tooru.”

 

A surge of affection fills Oikawa’s chest, sharp and warm and rusted. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this way without a chemical sedative forcing the emotion down. It hurts. 

 

“You’re going to kill yourself smoking those, you know.”

 

The pain in heart twists white hot. It's cruel, but Oikawa can’t help saying it anyway.

 

“Maybe I want to die.”

 

Oikawa watches Iwaizumi chest rise and fall in the dark. He doesn’t answer. And then, he raises his hand and slowly cards his hand through Oikawa’s hair, the gesture familiar and careful.

 

“You and I both know you would have given up a long time ago if that was the case, Tooru.”

 

Something tiny breaks in Oikawa. The affection twists its knife deeper and Iwaizumi is now twirling strands of his bangs in between his fingers and Oikawa can’t fucking stand it, he can’t, he can’t do this when he doesn’t have his cigarettes to hide behind. He fists his hand into Iwaizumi shirt and pulls him down onto the bed next to him and buries his head into the crook of his neck, sobbing and holding on for dear life.

 

~

Akaashi peers at himself in the mirror, frowning. No matter how hard he tries, it seems as if there will always be goggle imprints around his eyes and dust in his eyelashes and hair. His hair is dark enough that the dust isn’t noticeable, but the lines over his nose and under his eyes are always there, always present, always noticeable. He remembers a time when he used to try and keep his work life and his other life separate, when he used to desperately scrub the dust from his jackets and carefully sneak back into his house late at night after winning a race, careful not to let his medals click together as he crept up the stairs. Now his status as a galaxy famous motorcycle racer is so worn into his person that its been imprinted onto his face apparently- god, if only the 16 year old him could see him now. 

 

The small alarm clock balanced on the edge of the dresser reads 5:30, and Akaashi knows Daichi wanted them all downstairs at about 5:45 for a 6:00 departure. His bag is already packed, goggles and logbook wrapped up neatly in his shirts and rain jacket. His racing jacket neatly draped over his chair, worn and so unlike the leather dusters everyone else in this desert galaxy prefers to wear. Hours after everyone else had fallen asleep (and after Oikawa had stopped screaming), Akaashi had been up carefully rubbing leather conditioner and waterproofing sealant into the cracks around the elbows and shoulders. It had been a long time since Daichi had taken him with on a smuggling run, and Akaashi assumed that he would be the one making the contraband runs on his bike on whatever planets Ukai had decided to send them on this time. If they even got around to making the smuggling run in the first place. Akaashi tapped his fingernails against the countertop, thinking warily. The Six Shooter had their hands tied with his promise of a cure for Oikawa’s reality sickness; Akaashi knew that Daichi cared too much about Iwaizumi and Oikawa both to even think about passing that up. The remorse that the guy seemed to carry with him didn’t hurt either. It made him see more credible at the very least, and less likely to betray or mislead them in the long run. 

 

Something knocks against the doorway. Akaashi looks up to see Bokuto leaning against the doorframe, hair dripping wet around his face and….not wearing a shirt. Akaashi very determinedly focuses his eyes on Bokuto’s forehead and tries to keep himself from blushing. It is way too fucking early for this.

 

“Hey, hey Akaashi, it looks like there's going to be a race on Karasuno when we go to pick up Kageyama.” Bokuto’s voice bounces with the same effortless energy it always has and Akaashi can’t help but be a little jealous that he’s this awake this early in the morning.

 

“If you want to enter it, I could probably perfect the gear changes I was working on last week before we get there! And I’m sure Daichi wouldn’t mind staying the extra hour if you split some of the winnings with him.”

 

A race doesn’t sound like a bad idea, in all honesty. And Bokuto’s promise of fixing the gears means Akaashi could spend most of the trip in the hold of the ship with him watching him fix it. Which sounded much better than trying to sleep on one of the benches in the passenger area or choking on Oikawa’s cigarette smoke on the bridge. 

 

Akaashi smiles, exhaustion dogging at the corners of his brain, and nods. “That sounds nice, Bokuto-san. I’ll ask Daichi before we take off.” 

Bokuto smiles back, brilliant and golden, and then disappears back to his own room. His absence seems to suck a little bit of the life out of Kakashi's room and Akaashi slumps back in his chair, ignoring his heartbeat. Bokuto always seemed to have a warming effect on him and Akaashi can’t blame himself for that. Bokuto is the one who convinced Akaashi to run away from his home after all, and who let Akaashi stay with him until he could find a more steady income and a place of his own. Akaashi can’t help but still feel that gratitude and something a little more. He just has to keep reminding himself that he isn’t special to Bokuto in the grand scheme of things. Bokuto is just that kind. Bokuto would have probably done that for anyone. Bokuto likes pretty much anyone, Akaash included, so there's no reason to think that Akaashi means as much to him as he mean to Akaashi. It's safer that way.

 

Akaashi glances at the clock again- 5:40.He should probably head downstairs now. Akaashi tugs his jacket off of his chair and throws it over his shoulder. Duffle bag in hand, he flicks the light to the boarding room off and closes the door as carefully and quietly as he can. It's a habit he still hasn’t been able to shake even though its been years since he’s had to sneak out of a house.

 

~

 

Daichi uncorks a bottle of his favorite whiskey and pores slightly more than necessary into his coffee, stirring once with a rod and taking a large gulp of the concoction, wincing slightly when the bitter drink hit his stomach. He probably shouldn’t be drinking this early in the morning, but Daichi was a little past worrying about the state of his liver after the last 24 hours. What with the task of smuggling a criminal out of this galaxy, a criminal who was supposed to be leading them to the cure for a sickness that wasn’t even supposed to exist and who was probably going to have to tag along on their smuggling run for Ukai. A criminal with a past and who carried that past in his eyes and on his shoulders, heavy and a little suffocating. Its something Daichi had noticed last night when he had been questioning Sugawara and noticed how sad his eyes had looked. Daichi was used to seeing eyes like that; you don’t run a sketchy bar on the outskirts of an outlaw town without being acquainted with despair. 

 

Daichi heard someone coming down the stairs from the boarding house and was surprised to see Oikawa with his eyes clear and without a cigarette in his hand, Iwaizumi following close behind. They both looked exhausted. Daichi could not remember the last time he had seen Oikawa without an emotional suppression cigarette. It was strange seeing him without the constant cloud of sweet smoke floating around him.

 

Sugawara came next, warily walking into the room and leaning against the end of the bar. Daichi had decided to give him his own room for the night, instead of trying to organize some sort of watch to make sure he didn’t try to run away. It was sort of a test too- if Sugawara didn’t run off in the middle night now, when it was easiest and of least consequence to him, it meant he probably wouldn’t abandoned them in the future. Hopefully.

 

Daichi takes another sip of his coffee. “Are you fully healed yet?”

 

Sugawara smiles politely. “I think so. Internally I’m all right, but externally there's still some scarring. That’ll take a few days to heal completely.”

 

Iwaizumi huffs and goes straight for the coffee pot, pouring himself a large cup before he speaks. “If it gives you any trouble, let me know and I can take a look at it.”

 

Sugawara nods. “Thanks.”

 

Iwaizumi pours a second cup and hands it to Oikawa. Daichi furrows his brow. There is something different about them this morning, but Daichi can’t figure out what it is. Maybe it's the lack of cigarette throwing him off.

 

Akaashi comes down next, leather jacket slung over his shoulder and an almost zombie-like look in his eyes. Bokuto followed only a few seconds after, hair spiked and gold eyes entirely too preppy for this early in the morning. Daichi glances at the clock over the bar. 5:45 exactly. Time to get this over with.

 

Daichi raps his knuckles against the bar to get everyone's attention.

 

“I’d like to have takeoff no later than 6:10, and since we have everything we need on the ship already, I doubt that’ll be a problem. The flight to Karasuno shouldn’t take more than 3 hours or so- I let Kageyama know we’re going to be there early. After we pick him up, I want to have a meeting about where exactly the cure for the reality sickness is and how we can work that into our run for Ukai.” Daichi pauses, glancing at Sugawara. He’ll probably talk to him before they pick Kageyama up, so that Daichi will have time to think about what he wants to say to Ukai when they go to pick up the goods. Ukai is the one paying for the fuel for this trip, and as much as he likes Oikawa, Daichi doubts that he’d be ok with sending them across the galaxy on his budget without some goods to distribute along the way.

 

“After that we’ll head out on whatever run takes us closest to the cure, I guess. Any questions?”

 

Akaashi scuffs his toe against the wooden floor and speaks. “How long do you think we’ll be on Karasuno for?”

 

Daichi shrugs. “I’m not sure. However long it takes to get Kageyama and maybe pick up any supplies we’ve missed. Why?”

 

Daichi sees Akaashi hesitate and glance at Bokuto, who gives him a blinding smile, before answering. 

 

“There's going to be a race that morning at the salt flats right outside of town. It wouldn’t take more than an hour to finish, and I’d be happy to give you a portion of the winnings Daichi-san.”

 

It wouldn’t hurt to have Akaashi race, especially if it meant a little extra cash for the crew. It's not like Kageyama would care either if they left a little later than planned. Hell, Kageyama would probably be grateful for the extra time to wake up and get his shit together. That kid was a notoriously heavy sleeper and terrible at packing before trips. Figures. There was only enough room in his head for being a prodigal pilot; everything else took second place to the stars, and while that was incredibly useful to Daichi (two pilots were always better than one, and with the way Oikawa’s sickness had been progressing, they’d had to rely on Kageyama more and more often) it also meant that Kageyama was a dumbass when it came to literally anything else. 

“I don’t see why not. Is his bike ready Bokuto?”

 

Bokuto grins and nudges Akaashi in the side. “All I have to do is finish some gear work I was tinkering with last week and it should be good to go! I can do it in the cargo hold on the way there.”

 

“All right then.” Daichi downs the rest of his spiked coffee and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Let's get going.”

 

~

 

Suga has been on many ships in his lifetime, but the  _ Crow King  _ is by far one of the strangest ones. It had probably been some sort of luxury cruiser a long time ago, judging by the velvet covered seats and the smoothness of the controls. The ship definitely had signs of wear and tear; paint was peeling everywhere and some of the hinges were rusted and screamed when you pushed against them. Bokuto had proudly declared after Oikawa had barely gotten the ship out of the atmosphere and away from the planetary rangers that had decided to ask for their exit visa that he had modified the already powerful engines of the ship for speed above the galaxy mandated limit, making it impossible for any ranger ships to catch them when they weren’t at warp speed. Suga was sure that the fact the ship wasn’t carrying any contraband probably had something to do with the ships speed too, but he had a feeling pointing that out to Bokuto probably wouldn’t go over so well. 

 

After Oikawa had gotten them into light-speed, he put the system on autopilot, lit up a cigarette, and left for some remote corner of the ship. Suga though Iwaizumi had gone to follow him, but he’d noticed Iwaizumi aura in the main cabin reading a torn paperback novel a few minutes later instead. Bokuto and Akaashi had disappeared into the hold to work on Akaashi’s bike, so that left Suga and Daichi alone on the bridge, awkwardly staring at the stars and galaxies as they passed by in small brilliant blurs.

 

Daichi decides to break the silence first. Suga is extremely grateful for this, because he absolutely no idea what to say. Thanks for not killing me/turning me into the sheriff? I hope you know you can trust me and that I’m absolutely sincere about leading you to a cure for Oikawa’s reality sickness?

 

“Could you tell me more about where exactly we’re supposed to find the cure for reality sickness?”

 

Suga takes a deep breath in and focuses on Daichi’s aura next to him, trying to gauge the emotion behind the question. The golden threads of his aura were less pronounced than they were last night; the maroon seemed deeper and more intense. Suga takes this to mean that Daichi is probably trying to strategize and think about this problem rather than let his more emotional side take the lead. 

“It's a little difficult to explain-”

 

“Everything about you seems to be difficult to explain, Sugawara.”

 

Suga bites back a smile. “You can call me Suga, if you want. It might make things a little easier.”

 

He can feel Daichi looking at him. 

 

“Suga, then.” There is a little more warmth in Daichi’s voice now. It makes Suga feel a bit better about what he’s about to tell him. 

 

“We’ll need to follow a galactic leyline to the end of the universe. Or the beginning. They’re the same thing, really. The reason reality keeps trying to tear him apart was because he existed in a time and place where nothing should exist. It ruined the objectivity of reality.Sort of. Its...god, I can’t really explain it to you because I don’t know enough about it in humans. It's not supposed to be able to happen to people who live in linear, objective time and reality. Beings made of spacetime can exist in the spaces inbetween, even though reality doesn’t like it when we do, so we sometimes get a little sick if we stay in places we don’t belong too long.”

 

Suga feels like he's not being helpful at all with his explanation, but Daichi nods his head, running a hand over his jawline thoughtfully.

 

“How exactly will returning to the end,er, beginning of the universe help then?”

 

Suga waves his hands in front of him, trying to make the words come to him.

 

“If...If he goes back to the place he was never supposed to be, back to the beginning and end of everything since he exists in a liminal space now, the resulting paradox should be enough for reality to recognize him as a linear being again. If that makes sense.”

 

Daichi sighs. “It doesn’t really, but I think I understand enough to trust you. Will Kageyama and Oikawa be able to find the leyline?”

 

“I can show them how. There are thousands of them fracturing the galaxy and they all lead back to the same place.”

 

“Sounds good enough for me. I’ll have you talk to the rest of the crew once we pick up Oikawa.”

 

Suga can tell that Daichi is still a little wary of him. It's to be expected; less than 24 hours ago Daichi had him tied to a chair in his saloon and was fully prepared to turn him in to the sheriff and collect him 60,000,000$$ bounty. He wants this man to trust him so badly- Suga isn’t exactly sure why. Maybe it's because it's been almost a day since Kuroo had shot him and he already misses being able to rely on someone. Daichi’s crew are the kind of people Suga wishes he had met earlier in his life, wishes he and Kuroo had met earlier. Maybe things wouldn’t have turned out so fucked up if they had.

 

“I want to thank you again for not turning me in.” Suga faces towards Daichi, wanting him to see the sincerity in his face. “I know that nothing I say can be taken as sincere right now, but I mean it.” He smiles bit at the very end and surprised to see that instead of brushing the comment off or something else to that effect, Daich turns a little red and looks away from him, scratching at his ear. Huh. 

 

“It's nothing. I'm glad we found you. If you end up being right, we'll be able to save Oikawa and even though he can be a bitch, he really doesn't deserve the cards fate dealt him. Nether does Iwaizumi, for that matter.”

 

Daichi starts to say something else, but something on the instrument panel starts to beep frantically, interrupting him. Daichi stands and leans over the panel, searching for the course of the noise. “We’re almost in range of Karasuno. I’ll go get Oikawa so we can land.” He turns to Suga.” You can, uh, strap in to one of the seats to prepare for landing, if you want.”

 

Suga nods and smiles again (he should really come up with some other emotions than suffocating polietness) and watches Daichi walk out of the bridge. It seems that at least a little bit of his sincerity had gotten through to him, but only time would tell if the seed Suga had tried to plant with that conversation would grow at all. He hopes it does. He really likes Daichi. It’d be a shame if he tried to turn him in to the police after all of this. 

 

~

 

Daichi raps his knuckles against Kageyama’s door, a little pissed. He had sent a message to Kageyama letting him know they would be coming a little earlier but staying longer than planned because of Akaashi’s race. It had shown that Kageyama had read it. So why the hell wasn’t he answering his door?

 

Suga shifted next to him, hands stuck deep into the pockets of his duster. Daichi had noticed that he sometimes would grab at his waist right about where a hostler would be, before stopping himself when he remembered it wasn’t there. Daichi still hasn’t given Suga his pistols yet- he wasn’t sure when he would feel comfortable enough around him to show that must trust in a man who has killed thousands of people if Daichi was being completely honest with himself. 

 

“Would you like me to try picking the lock?”

 

The suggestion leaves Suga’s mouth in a light, breezy tone, like he’s offered this service millions of times before. 

 

“I don’t think- well, honestly, Kageyama isn’t going to hear us pounding on his door if he’s asleep. That kid sleeps like the motherfucking dead.” Daichi shrugs his shoulders and moves aside to let Suga crouch in front of the cheap door knob and pull a small sliver of wire from his pocket. 

 

It's obvious that he’s done this before. Daichi blinks and Suga is already done,wiggling the wire out of the keyhole and turning the knob with ease, letting the door swing open into Kageyama’s apartment. Suga steps aside so that Daichi can enter the apartment first and Daichi cannot help but wonder if his weirdly good lock picking skills are a product of talent, or some sort of weird space-time manipulation thing. No wonder he got away with murder for so long

 

Daichi steps into the apartment, taking care not to step on the piles of shoes and tattered coat piled in the entryway. The tiny space is a mess, with clothing strewn everywhere and different flight manuals stacked haphazardly on a cheap wooden coffee table. Daichi spots two shattered ashtrays on the floor of the kitchen and his stomach tightens. He knew that while Kageyama doesn't necessarily mean to, his weird innate talent with flying made him a lot of enemies simply by existing. It had been about a year or so since Kageyama had competed in a syndicate race (if Kageyama hadn’t been lying when he told that to Daichi), but it wouldn’t be unheard of for some salty mafia boss to try and get revenge on him for winning a race he wasn’t supposed to years ago.

 

Daichi calls out. “Kageyama-kun? Are you here?”

 

Nothing. Suga walks into the room behind him, footsteps crunching on the broken glass. “He’s here,” he says quietly, glancing over at Daichi. “I can see his aura over there.” 

 

Suga points to a door at the far end of the room. Daichi dimly remembers Suga mentioning auras last night when convinced them not to turn them in, but doesn’t dwell on it. He instead strides across the room and knocks a couple times on the door before throwing it open.

 

“...Kageyama?”

 

Kageyama is asleep in his bathtub, floral shower curtain wrapped around himself like a blanket. His communicator watch lies blinking on the bathroom counter. 

 

Daichi spots an empty coffee mug on the edge of the bath. He picks it up and fills it with rust colored water from the sink. Daichi then tosses the water in Kageyama’s face, smirking a bit when Kageyama shrieks and sits upright in the tub, tangled in the shower curtain. Daichi can hear Suga giggling a bit behind him, and the sound makes his chest twist strangely.

 

“Daichi-san! I didn’t-I swear I- I got your message but I-”

 

Daichi offers his hand out to a thoroughly embarrassed Kageyama. “Did you really fall asleep in the bathtub Tobio?”

 

Kageyama scowls and takes his hand, distancing himself from the curtain. Water drips down his bangs and onto his face and Daichi feels a little bit like he just threw water on a grumpy puppy.

 

“I didn’t mean to. I was going to take a shower but I got tired and then I got your message and then-”

 

Its at that moment that Daichi remembers he is currently traveling with one of the most wanted outlaws in the universe and that he had neglected to tell Kageyama this very important face when he had messaged him. Daichi watches Kageyama’s eyes go wide when he notices the pretty silver haired man behind him.

 

“Daichi-san…”

 

“I know, Kageyama. It's a little difficult to explain.” They stand there for a moment, Kageyama still suspended in disbelief. Daichi figures he should probably get a move on.

 

“Everyone else is already at the races to watch Akaashi. I can explain everything on the way there, if you have your bags packed.”

 

Kageyama nods, still a little bewildered, and moves to push past Daichi and Suga to get out of the cramped bathroom. “I still need to grab a few things but it shouldn’t take long-”

 

Daichi and Suga press themselves against the counter to let him pass and for a second Daichi can feel Suga’s leather duster scraping against his own. 

 

Kageyama, hair still dripping and grumbling under his breath, makes his way to the kitchen, being careful not to step in the shattered ashtrays on the floor. Daichi wonders how long they’ve been there. Kageyama pours himself a glass of milk and grabs a stained canvas duffle bag from his pantry, throwing it lazily on the counter. 

 

“Uh, Kageyama-san…” Daichi turns to see Suga glaring at the shattered ashtrays on the floor. “Would you mind if I picked those up?”

 

Kageyama pauses and considers Suga for a moment, clutching his glass of milk to his chest. He shrugs. “I guess. I don’t have a broom though.”

 

_ Of course he doesn’t,  _ Daichi thinks. Suga wanders into the living room to find something to clean up the glass with and when Daichi thinks about it all later, thinks about Kageyama standing with his glass of milk and Daichi awkwardly standing in the doorway of his kitchen, that he really should have known. Daichi should have known that taking Suga with him to this part of the city was a bad idea. He should have known that the most wanted outlaw in the galaxy would attract attention. Daichi should have know to relock the door to Kageyama’s apartment when he and Suga had come in. 

 

Daichi hears something shatter and he looks up to see Kageyama’s glass of milk explode across the floor, Kageyama pressed against the cheap wood of his cabinets. The expression on Kageyama’s face is intense, but unreadable.

 

It is then that Daichi notices a horrifically familiar figure standing in the doorway, right hand holding the collar of a squirming boy with orange hair. Ushijima Wakatoshi is someone Daichi has never really gotten along with in the world of bounty hunting. Daichi has a feeling from the massive rifle strapped across his back and the dead look in his eyes, that their relationship is about to get a whole lot worse.

 

“Sawamura-san, I don’t suppose you plan on collecting the bounty on that outlaw you’re traveling with, do you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: pssttt I now have an entire Twitter dedicated to anime @summersofsnow if u wanna uhhhhhh talk abt baseball or space westerns

**Author's Note:**

> the song that originally inspired me to write this fic four years ago is six shooter by coyote kisses, so thats where the title and most of the chapter names are from. its a certified bop if you'd like to give it a listen!
> 
> please drop a kudos or a comment if you enjoyed this fic! they keep me going and motivated to write.
> 
> if the charecters seem a little ooc, i'll admit that i haven't actually read/seen haikyuu in a few years and its been awhile since i've written for it too. it might take a little bit for me to get fully back into the swing of things, but i'm trying my best to keep them true to canon!
> 
> if you'd like to talk to me or bother me about anime my twitter and my tumblr are both @mysenpaiisdead. i'm always down to talk with people, so please feel free to shoot me a message if you'd like to chat!


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